Keeping Fit Through the Holidays

So, you've eaten right, avoided calories, carbohydrates and fat all year and you've religiously run on that treadmill and lifted those weights each day after work. This means you can forget it all until after the holidays are over next April? No. It means, you can relax a little, be a little naughty in your diet without derailing yourself. Physician John La Puma, MD, says it well: even totally out-of-control days won't lead to significant weight gain if you have only few of them a year...The problem isn't Thanksgiving, it is the fact that many people don't stop eating between Thanksgiving and the New Year," he tells WebMD.com.

When I lost 41 pounds in 2007, I realized, after a false start, that I shouldn't deny myself anything. I gave myself permission to overindulge at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years day, Valentines and Easter. Just a few days a year didn't cause me to gain that weight back. You have to give yourself something to look forward to; otherwise you'll just snap and eat anything in sight. Try substituting lower calorie/carb foods for favorites. One of my favorite substitutions is mashed cauliflower for mashed potatoes. It looks similar, and you can put in some calcium and vitamin C rich cheese in the cauliflower! Try something new, like gruyere.

Work in some light exercise while enjoying the family at the holidays, invite them to walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the displays or lift some weights before dinner with some music or a movie on. My fitness goals throughout the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are to maintain my weight and I allow a few extra pounds for indulging. You can still enjoy Great Grandma's Sweet Potato Pie, it is stock-full of nutrients, one sweet potato contains nearly 500 percent of the recommended daily amount of vitamin A and almost 50 percent of your vitamin C. I usually walk two to three miles per day, so in the holiday season, I enjoy the Christmas displays in storefront windows and the decorated boats in the harbor.

So, if you think you're doomed to stuff yourself like a twenty pound Christmas goose and suffer until next spring when you can put yourself through a basic training like a football or baseball team, its all about moderation.